The city of Zurich’s digitalisation strategy lays out the roadmap for further expanding various online services for the population and businesses. This includes services that make the lives of the city’s residents easier – especially taxes. Where filling out a tax return in the traditional way used to result in a folder bursting with paper, the municipal tax office now provides a modern and fully digital cockpit. This step towards digitalisation is both user friendly and technically sound. Zurich’s ‘tax cockpit’ – better known to the public by its official name of ‘Tax management online service’ (Online-Dienst: Steuern verwalten) – recently made the Shortlist of the Best of Swiss Web Awards 2021.
What does the digital tax cockpit offer Zurich?
The tax cockpit was implemented with support from consulting and IT service provider adesso and launched in November 2020. The new application enables the approximately 250,000 private citizens living in the city of Zurich who are obliged to file tax returns to view their tax documents and provides a secure, simple communication channel for contacting tax office employees. In addition, they can access information on their outstanding tax bills, view payments that have been made and look back through previous tax years, as well as apply to pay in instalments and calculate their tax bills – all paperless, whenever they need to.
Tax office employees also benefit from the digital tax cockpit in their day-to-day work: there has been a significant drop in inquiries being sent multiple times since the cockpit was introduced as it is now easier for staff to interact with taxpayers and answer their specific questions, streamlining the use of resources.
There are already plans to expand the tax cockpit
In its current form, the tax cockpit is accessible to private individuals and is constantly under development. The new requirements for the 2.0 release are currently being evaluated.
